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Leaping the Great Firewall of China

How Twitter and other technologies are keeping one step ahead of the censors.

By

Emily Parker

Updated March 24, 2010 12:01 a.m. ET

Google rode into China four years ago on a wave of optimism about the Internet's power to spread information within closed societies. At that time I was living in Hong Kong, where I had been writing about China and the Internet for this newspaper. I described online petitions, vibrant Web communities, and netizens' successful attempts to unearth news that authorities tried to block.

I believed that companies like Google would broaden the market for information. So when Google launched its Chinese site, Google.cn, I was uneasy...